When It Burns
by Seph Lorraine
Summary: The past has left him with nothing to turn back to and nothing to live for. Aya calms Ken from his bitter thoughts on a rainy day. (RanKen)


**Author's Note**: (3:54 PM 7/1/2004) My attempt with some RanKen angst, as usual there isn't much "action", because I find myself unable to write scenes involving much more than meaningful touches. Not because it squicks me, but because I simply can't describe it. I try. I'm trying to warm up for my hopeful continuation of Somewhat Damaged, this piece really just came out in the process.  
  
**Warnings**: RanKen, shounen ai, angst, most-likely ooc  
  
**Musical Background**: _Fear_ by Sarah McLauchlan, _Lapis_ by Gackt, and _My Immortal_ by Evanesence were all used for the writing of this piece.  
  
--  
  
**When It Burns**

By _Seph Lorraine_  
  
--  
  
He watched him, sitting there just meer inches from him, looking out the window to the rainy streets below. Though, his focus was blurred. There was nothing but the haze of the day.  
  
Well, that and the creature sitting before him.  
  
Brown eyes turned their dull gaze from the window, looking up to meet the violet eyes that bore in to him with such steadiness. He bit his lip lightly and turned back to the window, his face was void of emotion, his eyes dull without their spark.  
  
They said nothing, either of them, and they expected nothing to be said.  
  
Aya tilted his head against the wall, closing his eyes lightly against the dim light the rainy scene through the window provided. In his mind he could still see him, messy brown hair falling into darkened eyes of that same beautiful colour, tanned skin vanishing beneath a cheap white shirt, loose bluejeans with no belt and frayed edges-- old from wear, and bargain-priced white athletic socks. His pose was the same as always, one leg bent to rest his arm on, ontop of which he rested his chin, the other leg hung off the window seat towards the floor.  
  
It was no new sight, and not one to appear "special" in any real way, other than evidence that Hidaka Ken was a somewhat more thoughtful man than some had so far thought to see. Yet, it was a sight that Aya held within him, and had he been anything of an artist, it was an image he would have sketched a thousand times over-- always perfecting; never completing.   
  
He had seen him like this many times. It was a sort of unspoken secret between the two. Every once in a while, Ken would have a day like this, when he would do nothing but sit in the other's room, watching out the window, and throughout the entire time he was there he spoke hardly a word. These days didn't come often, though. Sometimes they were two or three months apart, but they always inevitably came.  
  
The quiet brunett's thoughts on these days were always a mystery to Aya, whom never made to question him. It was something he found he had in common with the younger man. Both of them shared pasts tainted by a darkness that, unlike Youji and Omi whom had found ways to accept the past and move on, never seemed to give them a final sense of peace. It was a silent understanding-- never a word spoken upon the matter.  
  
They simply sat in silence, each lost in his own thoughts. Ken's thoughts being whatever they were, and Aya's more lately being over the brunett sitting by him before his window. Days like this were almost a complete reverse in direction for the other's usually open personality.  
  
Ken's eyes simply watched the street.  
  
The sky was grey with the continuation of a passing storm. Small droplets of rain fell to the blackened roads and clean sidewalks, darkening the red hue of the brick on the building across the street, and sliding slowly down the pane of the window. On the sidewalk below, a flurry of coloured umbrellas scurried to beat the storm.  
  
The silence was thick in the air of the room.  
  
"Aya?"  
  
The voice pulled him slowly from his reverie. Hearing the unfamiliar quiet in the brunett's voice, he pulled his eyes open. He turned his violet gaze to the man sitting before him, his expression dull and without. He had never heard the other say but a few small sentences during days like these.  
  
Ken's eyes held no clue as to the thoughts within him.  
  
Aya's tone was equally quiet when he responded, "Yes?"  
  
Brown eyes turned back to the window, "What do you live for?"  
  
The usually stoic man seemed to narrow his gaze as he watched the other. At first, his mind told him to simply deny the other his answer. Yet as he watched the silent brunett, he found himself strangely opting to answer.  
  
"In case she wakes up."   
  
It was already known to both of them whom he spoke of. All of Weiss knew about the stoic redhead's comatose sister, though she was still not a comfortable topic of conversation amoung them. Aya never spoke of her.  
  
Ken was silent, seemingly digesting the information. After a moment, his tired voice responded, "I envy you that."  
  
A violet-eyed gaze watched the posed man before him, awaiting an explaination. After a moment had passed though, it was obvious the brunett was not going to elabourate, "Why?"  
  
The brunett let a small smirk tug at the corner of his lips, as if the reason were obvious, "It's a good thing to live for."  
  
After another moment of silence, the redhead's curiosity had peaked, "What about you?"  
  
"Weiss." The response was a bare whisper.  
  
Aya tilted his head, never removing his gaze from the brunett, "And that's all?"  
  
Ken remained silent, nodding slowly. Outside, the rain was beginning to really fall, blurring the glass with splotches of water. No longer able to see clearly outside, his browns eyes turned back to the only other thing of interest he could clearly see, Aya.  
  
"What else is there?" His voice was distant as he spoke, "I've nothing left. No family, no friends, and not even an existing life to fall back on."  
  
Aya was silent, as he took this in.  
  
Ken's gaze fell to the dark red cusion of the windowseat, "I'm dead."  
  
It was true, after his mysterious 'vanishing' in a fire some years earlier, Hidaka Ken was officially, through legal documentation, no longer amoung the living. While Omi had his computers and school, Youji had his socialising, optimism, and his already trained skills as a P.I., and Aya had the hopes of his sister's reawakening to fall back on, Ken was left with nothing.  
  
What did he have? Soccer? Even that had begun to loose it's flavour. It was difficult to keep interest when the only other player in the game was yourself. He enjoyed teaching it, but it was still an open wound for him to know he had no more chances with it, himself.  
  
All he had were memories, it seemed, which were simply unpleasant.  
  
Ken sighed, "I know I don't usually talk to you like this, and I don't really know why I am, now." His gaze returned to meet the one already watching him. "'Sorry if it bothers you."  
  
Aya shook his head lightly, still leaning against the wall behind him, "I don't mind." And it was strange that he actually didn't.  
  
Another forced half-smile from the other man.  
  
"Then, what motivates you?" Aya's voice was smooth and deep.  
  
"I'm not quite sure." A vague response.  
  
Questions buzzed within the redhead's mind. Things he had wondered about for months, but never voiced. He wondered if their strained bond of understanding could risk his sudden inquisitiveness.  
  
His gaze never moved from the brunett, "Why do you always come here?" He had wondered that one many times.  
  
Ken's shrugg was weak, "Because... Your window has a nice view..." [1]  
  
There was silence for a while.  
  
"...And I know you understand." He added softly.  
  
"Then what makes you come here?"  
  
This time the brunett hesitated, "...When I feel like I'm still burning."  
  
At that one, Aya's expression drew to a curious frown.  
  
Ken spoke quietly, "Sometimes the heat still licks at me. Despite how long it's been." He sighed, rubbing at the shirt over centre of his abdomen, a scar beneath the fabric. "When it happens, it's as if my body simply stops doing what my mind tells it to do. Except for coming here."  
  
Violet eyes watched the spot on Ken's abdomen at which he had rubbed. He had seen the scars before-- an accident on his behalf. They were burn scars, running in waves across his torso and arms, mostly healed, yet permenant. A physical memory of the night his closest friend had ultimately betrayed him.  
  
"I hate it all so much." There was a faultering in his voice as he spoke again, "I hate killing people, I hate the fact that that seems my only reason to live, I hate that I have nothing of my old life left, I hate teaching soccer with the knowledge that I can no-longer play, myself, I hate flowers, I hate working in a flower shop, and I hate sounding self-absorbed like I do now-- going on about trivial things like 'hate'."  
  
"'Trivial things like 'hate'.'" Aya echoed and raised a fine red eyebrow, "I've not heard that before."  
  
Ken sighed against the sound of the rain, falling harder now; making the window a blur of moving grey.  
  
On impulse, the redhead reached out, pulling one of the other man's arms up to examine. Surely enough, pale waves of healed burns were stretched across, midway from his elbow to his wrist, some even reaching low enough to the wrist. He ran his smooth fingertips along the lines, suddemly, tracing the scars that had marred the creature before him now.  
  
"He did all this to you." It was a confirmation of understanding, not a question.  
  
Ken made no sound, only watched the violet-eyed man before him.  
  
Aya paused before asking his next question, "And you hate him, too?" Violet eyes returned from their journey over the scars to meet brown.  
  
Slowly, Ken shook his head, "No... Unfortunately, I still..." He drifted off, his eyes turning downward, unable to complete what he was trying to say.  
  
"Love him?" Aya finished quietly. Still watchful.  
  
Ken merely bobbed his head, not looking up to reveal his face to his leader.  
  
The older man slowly let go of his arm. Returning it to his side, where it had been to begin with. The brunett still did not meet his gaze.  
  
"Why?" Aya wasn't even sure why the word had had fled from his mouth, but it had, making him inwardly wince. Why did he suddenly feel like the both of them had completely switched personalities.  
  
More shaking of the head, and the tilted face of the brunett still refused to look up, "Because... He was someone very close to me, whom I trusted completely. And if he had betrayed me a thousand more times... I would probably still feel this way."  
  
Violet eyes did not move from the object of their focus, "I don't understand."  
  
There was a heavy sigh, and brown eyes looked up through messy hair, "Because when you love someone... You can't just stop. It dosen't work like that; if it did, life would be too easy for us. I want to hate him, but that's just not possible."  
  
There was a silence between them as Aya digested the other man's words. Ken was a lot more than he was given credit for. He had never experienced the feeling of trying to hate someone whom you loved so deeply. Ken, on the other hand, knew it well.  
  
"Youji's window has a view just as--"  
  
"If you want me to leave, just say it." The other man cut in sharply. His brown-eyed gaze was trained blindly on the window; the view of the street, now hidden beneath a torrent of grey rain.  
  
Aya was silent, watching the man before him, "That's not how I meant it."  
  
"It's not just the window, Aya." His voice sighed, "It's you."  
  
Violet eyes never moved from the figure before him, just watching. Listening for any words the other would speak next. He had other questions within them, remnants of an unsatisfied curiosity he had obtained in his childhood; one that had almost vanished after the accident, when he had decided that the world was to cold a place for him to care about.  
  
He had become like the world, then. Cold and unfeeling, and a murderer. The very thing he had turned against had not been the world, but himself. Though, the curiosity within him lingered long after the death of expression, making it's presence known only when the brunett was present. It had made him follow the other man when Kase had come back, and it had controlled the careful eye he kept trained on his tempermental teammate at all times.   
  
Slowly, the curiostiy within him had become a necromancer to those decaying traits of humanity that he had so carelessly abandoned in the past. He knew because he had shared more than a few laughs at the brunett's expense, and sometimes his eyes lingered a bit to long on the tanned form before him.   
  
Sometimes his thoughts echoed the actions of his eyes.  
  
"Is there something on my face?"  
  
"No."  
  
"You're staring."  
  
"There's not a lot else to look at."  
  
Ken smirked and began to chuckle, moving his legs, to sit pressing his back ot the cold window, "Yea... The view sort of died, I guess."  
  
The older man made no response, simply watching the brunett again. He was waiting to see how long until the cold of the window against his back made the other man move away. He knew the usually sunny soccer-player hated the cold.  
  
Brown eyes turned from their gaze over the redhead's spotless room to watch the man beside him. He made no move as to speak. He simply watched.  
  
"Why are you watching me?" Aya's voice was quiet.  
  
"Because you're watching me... And there's not a lot else to look at." He smirked, happy with throwing the phrase back.  
  
"You seem to have cheered up considerably in the past few minutes."  
  
A shrug, "You do that to me."   
  
Aya was still.  
  
Without really thinking about the action, the brunett extended a hand and brushed it through the other's fiery red hair, feeling the smooth and soft texture. As he pulled his hand away he caught the other's violet gaze, yet again.  
  
"What was that for?"  
  
Another shrug, "I just always wondered what it felt like."  
  
Raising an eyebrow, the usually stoic man mimicked him, running a pale hand through messy brown hair, lingering lightly as he traced the other's earlobe with his index finger. He dropped his hand back to his side again, face exressionless but watchful.  
  
Ken's rapt attention never wavered from the other's face, "And what was that for?"  
  
"You have small ears." A cryptic voice responded.  
  
There was silence, and neither set of eyes left the other.  
  
After a moment, Ken leaned forward, his gaze unmoving, "I can't figure it out..."  
  
A pause. "Can't figure what out?"  
  
Closer now, "Why I want to kiss you."  
  
Violet eyes flashed in slight surprise, "I wouldn't know."  
  
"I want to kiss you." The brunett repeated, still moving closer.  
  
There was silence.  
  
When the other spoke it was hardly a whisper, "Then go ahead."  
  
Ken's eyes widened slightly in surprise for a moment before he quickly leaned forward and pressed his lips gently against his leader's own. The kiss was soft at first, with little pressure applied from either participant. The brunett pulled away slightly, meeting the other's open gaze.   
  
They both wanted this.  
  
So he leaned forward again, crushing their lips together with more pressure this time, and pulling his arms up to wrap around the other man's neck. Aya moved his arms around his waist, pulling the tanned man closer, his tongue skimming smoothly across the other's lower lip and deepening the kiss.  
  
Outside the rain fell in hard sheets to the ground, clensing the city. It soaked through the umbrellas and coats of those whom dared to go outside. It splashed onto the cars in the street.   
  
_It washed away the things we wished we had forgotten.  
_  
--  
  
**Owari.  
  
**--  
  
**Authors Notes  
**  
1] Ken's saying: "Because... Your window has a nice view..." is more of my stupid symbolism. It seems that I've made the dreaded mistake of actually paying attention in Literary Analysis, and now I incorporate this stuff into everything I write. What he's saying is taken also with a literal sense, though. --;;  
  
--  
  
**The Review Button**: (Singing) Come on people, now! Smile on your brother! Everybody get together! Gotta' love one another! :D


End file.
